Chapter 11: The Leaves Remain Standing

Winter in the Forbidden Forest is remarkably short.

At most, it only lasts about a month and a half.

Compared to Earth where winter continues for nearly 3 months, it's only about half as long.

Because of this, you can witness some unique natural phenomena here...

Namely, the fact that leaves don't fall even in the dead of winter.

Originally, leaves fall in winter to conserve energy.

In winter when there's less sunlight than summer, the energy needed to maintain leaves exceeds what they can get from photosynthesis.

So trees normally strip naked in winter. You could say it was the trend.

If they didn't, they'd take losses in winter and be at a disadvantage for survival.

But what the trees didn't know was this:

Nature follows the law of survival of the fittest, and it takes time to regrow leaves.

So while most trees were like "Uwu it's cold... gotta save up ;-;" making gay-ass choices,

When a chad tree appeared saying "fuck that shit, I'm going my own way", you could witness something interesting.

Namely, if the chad tree managed to endure winter, it would absorb all the sunlight for a while.

As if being compensated for the harsh winter, the chad tree would grow rapidly.

As a result, the leaves of the chad tree would end up covering the leaves of the virgin trees from above.

The result was predictable.

The virgin trees would get ntr'd of even the sunlight they had.

The choice they made to make up for winter losses actually caused them more harm.

Life forms that lose in competition can only decrease in number.

As a result, the number of virgin trees decreased, and the chad trees that walked their own damn way came to dominate the 'Forbidden Forest'...

Of course, if winter lasted 3 months, the chads would have dried up and died first, but the appropriate duration of a month and a half allowed them to endure.

Anyway, for that reason the dense leaves in this forest barely fall throughout all four seasons.

Natural selection favored the chad trees.

Honestly at first I thought what kind of ridiculous environment is this.

Trees that never lose leaves and keep growing endlessly through all seasons. No wonder people don't come here, I thought.

But for once I found myself grateful for this environment.

Why am I suddenly bringing this up? Because right now I'm reaping the benefits of those leaves.

"Sigh... where the heck is he?"

"Came to see him in person but can't even find his cave."

Looking down, I could see two female adventurers scanning the area.

Fortunately, they didn't think to look up.

Not that it would matter if they did. The leaves cover most of my form anyway.

It's been 5 weeks since the attempted rape incident.

During that time, I've seen quite a few unwanted visitors. No idea how many people watched that stream, but they keep coming to this dangerous place just to see me in person.

"Hey, this isn't working, let's go."

"Why not look around a bit more?"

"No way, I didn't bring my items. Can't risk dying."

"Ugh."

Thankfully these unwanted visitors left quickly. That makes the 5th visitor repelled.

After confirming they were completely gone, I climbed down from the tree and sighed.

"Phew..."

The good news is that no one has come with bad intentions like that first one.

Most really just seemed like tourists trying to chat with a local.

Of course, that doesn't mean I had any reason to meet them.

The second piece of good news is that, as she said before, the route to my cave wasn't properly shown. Thanks to that, most who come to the forest can't find my dwelling.

Plus, being the Forbidden Forest helps too.

Every visitor has been a thief class with high stealth - it's not like some tourist attraction with crowds of people.

Thanks to these factors, I've managed to live without major issues so far.

Though it is more troublesome having to be more vigilant than before.

'Damn, if only it weren't for that stream.'

At times like this, I blamed that streamer Yoo Chae-rin.

If not for that stream, I'd still be living peacefully. Sure, life got a bit more colorful, but this isn't the kind of color I wanted.

If I ever meet her again, I'm definitely giving her a forehead flick.

'How long do I have to live like this?'

After regaining peace, I thought this while heading back to my cave.

Life was tough enough already, I couldn't keep living like this forever.

Sometimes desires would surface.

'Damn, should I just meet them comfortably?'

All they wanted was conversation. Though it felt like being an animal at the zoo, their intentions seemed harmless.

And I wanted conversation just as much.

To me, always accompanied by solitude, humans were very missed creatures.

'... No, I can't.'

But such impulses were brief as I quickly got my mind straight.

As I said before, I'm someone with restrictions on human relationships.

And honestly, I still can't fully trust these Otherworlders.

How they'll react to Demon's Blood, how they'll act going forward.

While this is reality for me, to them it's just a game.

Being a game, you never know when they might suddenly change. Who knows, they might try to kill me just for fun.

Once again today, no clear answer emerged. Well, if I'm that worried I could always disguise the cave...

"...Sigh."

So after another round of hide and seek with the Otherworlders, I trudged back to my cave.

Though there was still some daylight left, it's not like I had anything to do.

Food was plentiful, and I needed to leave some monsters alive if only because of the Otherworlders.

Daily supplies were running a bit low, but going to the city required some preparation.

For those reasons, today was for rest.

So I returned to my cave, and immediately noticed something peculiar.

There was an unwanted visitor sitting in my cave.

"Hehe... h-hi?"

And that visitor had a somewhat familiar appearance.

Silver bobbed hair and purple eyes. Yoo Chae-rin was waiting for me in a demure pose.

In front of her were some fruits, either a bribe or housewarming gift.

She was clearly trying to show goodwill.

The effort was admirable, but she was the root cause of all my unwanted visitors.

I couldn't help but start cursing at her the moment I saw her.

"Hey you piece of sh-"

*

Though spring's fresh temperature had settled in, the cave was still cool, not having fully warmed up yet.

The cave that would normally be quiet was unusually filled with a woman's crying.

"Sob sob... sniff..."

Strangely, there was a bright red bruise on her smooth forehead.

It wasn't from being punched... just a rather hard forehead flick.

How hard? Even with her Synchronization Rate set to 40%, the pain was quite noticeable.

Needless to say, the woman crying pitifully was Yoo Chae-rin.

Across from her, Yor was watching with an expression full of irritation.

Her heart ached. As much as her reddened forehead.

It felt like running into bullies in a back alley during school days...

"Sniff..."

Having been very nervous, she had run many mental simulations of meeting Yor.

She'd roughly predicted his reactions. Given how he told her to get lost last time, she didn't expect a good response.

But that was okay.

She'd thought through how to handle it. She'd even decided what topics to bring up if conversation stalled.

Funny how she, who'd never even been on a blind date, put this much effort into an NPC.

It was a bit ridiculous, but she thought she was well prepared.

...But who could have expected a sudden forehead flick.

Unfortunately, that wasn't in her predictions. Naturally, she couldn't read the other party's psychology either.

So she carefully asked him.

"Sniff, Why did you..."

Yor said nothing. Instead, he went inside and brought something out.

Ting-!

With a clear metallic sound, something was thrown in front of her.

It was leather greaves and a dagger. And they were expensive items made of quite high-quality materials.

As she wondered why he was suddenly showing these, Yor spoke.

"Are all Otherworlders like this?"

Soon Chae-rin would hear the full story from Yor.